


with your tender offerings

by verdent



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Sharing a Bed, but actually it is a couch in riz's office, mostly fluff but there is dealing with sophomore year things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:35:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25451764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verdent/pseuds/verdent
Summary: and you when you call me mercyand you when you can't be stronghere you come with your tender offeringshow could i ever do you wrong?- tender offerings, first aid kitriz cannot seem to stow away his busy mind long enough to sleep, an old problem with new solutions.
Relationships: Riz Gukgak/Gorgug Thistlespring
Comments: 9
Kudos: 25
Collections: Dimension 20 Fic Exchange 2020





	with your tender offerings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aesthetic_shitpost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aesthetic_shitpost/gifts).



He is losing track of time again and knows it all too well, not getting four hours like he promised, worried voice memos from his mom become increasing visitors in his mailbox before quickly and abashedly being deleted. Three weeks back in Elmville Riz still feels the weighted, nauseated mimicry of the Celestine Sea dancing in his stomach. At least, it is the most logical explanation he can posit when his mind confronts it in the fleeting pauses between work, to sip room temperature coffee in the dim, fading light in the office.

It is muted, too cold too bitter on his tongue. He thinks about the grave and his dad and the hillside on that happy little plane of existence, what might he have said in frustration or loneliness before he knew. What should he say now? He has not visited since he got home. It was easier to shout the endless notations of his life into the unknown space hoping his dad could hear them than comprise an expert notice with the abject certainty that he could. He would grimace, but he doesn’t drink it for the taste. Mug empty and abandoned to the wayside of his desk that isn’t strewn with papers, handwritten notes (mostly unusable) between Kristen and Tracker, a picture they all took outside of The Swan’s Little Parade and another with Garthy on Leviathan (he does grimace at the difference in tattoos between them), Ayda’s journal entries, statements from the rest of the Bad Kids about their fears in the forest, video files imported from his tie to his crystal of Kalina (smiling absentmindedly at the memory of his father pressing it into his hands in their little pocket of heaven / choking down the image of her that spikes his blood pressure and has him reaching for his arquebus while he still could), and everyone’s segments of the paper. It was the makings of a perfect quest report, or what Riz needed to be a perfect quest report. 

Fervent scratching of pen to paper falls away to the thick, empty, dark wooden interior of the office, Riz barely acknowledging the movement it took to turn on the lamp with daylight lost. The only notable function of the dark to make Riz’s hairs stand on end, grip his pencil tighter, and anxiously eye every corner of the room before losing himself to the work above his fears.

His wrist hurts, but he does not know how long it has been, third cup of coffee, tenth sheet of paper, ink strains stretching just past the tip of his middle finger, these were how Riz Gukgak marked the passage of time without killing his stride in a moment of realization. This time as he breaks away to sip from a half-drained mug there is no room to think about his dad, his stomach, Kalina, Baron, any of it, re-reading, editing, rearranging in his mind the portions they had all written. Adaine’s is fine, just a highly debated stray comma in the middle of a beautiful essay on chosen family. Kristen mostly talks about Tracker for six pages but provides great information on the tincture and the journey of the nameless goddess in the last two. Fig chronicles their adventure in Hellish relations and meeting Ayda so poetically he marks edits to help make it fit the professional tone. Fabian’s mostly needs grammatical work throughout, notating his personal growth and the archenemy made of Chungle-Down Bim in striking heroic detail, his father finally absent in his story. And Gorgug’s, Riz turns it over in his hands, reading it and reading it again and another time, fixating on the penciled schematics of his axe and knowledge of the Hangman garnered from piecing it back together. Riz reads it a fourth time and checks the compiled report and thinks about the Hangvan and the cell tower and Aguefort’s watch and the tinkerers in Arborly looking at Gorgug renewed and amazed and a message meant for everyone but himself in the thick of that terrible, selfish wood.

It’s Gorgug, keep going.

And Riz wants more than what he has in his hands, and his hand is at his crystal before he can register who he’s calling.

It rings once. Twice. Three times and Riz is dangerously aware of how dark it has gotten outside, how long the street light may have been glaring in through the cracks in the blinds, and before he can check the time the line connects to a moment of silence on the other end.

“Hey, uhh, Riz, what’s up?” 

Shit. He recognizes the sleep in Gorgug’s voice, deeper, softer, more from his chest, Riz’s fingers tapping wildly against his leg as the anxiety swells in his stomach. 

“Hey, sorry, never mind, it can totally wait-”

“No, no, I’m up what’s going on?” It is a lie, but one Gorgug doesn't mind telling, already moving to get out of bed.

“I’m working on the quest report at the office and wanted to go over a few things.”

Gorgug scratches out a quick note for his parents in case they wake up and grabs his keys, holding his crystal to his shoulder and awkwardly shimmying out of the Thistlespring tree.

“Cool, I’ll be over in ten.”

Riz braces himself for the flash of his crystal as the call ends.

3:03 AM

He fights the ocean of guilt in his stomach coming to shore again and begins moving the report to the coffee table in front of the gnarled couch Fig insisted on moving into the office, and soon a gentle knock falls through the front door.

And there is Gorgug in the cool air of the morning under the amber glow of the street lights, still in his flannel pajama pants and Cig Figs tee, patches of rustled hair he had furiously tried and failed to pin down on the drive over sticking out atop his head. Riz can’t help but smile at the sight of him in the doorway.

Attentive to the frantic movements Riz makes, his weight confoundingly present at Gorgug’s side on the couch, his mind wanders eagerly to concern. Riz’s hands shake like that when he is dancing on the edge of being up too long, something he finds an impossible concept only when he is staring it down. There is something about the early morning and Gorgug’s own half-lidded eyes and gentle frame taking up most of the couch that puts those fitful waves to a steady tremor in Riz’s stomach as he inquires about everything to do with their quest while not quite remembering what he is saying as it leaves his mouth. There is something about Riz’s voice on the phone and the way Gorgug was already putting his shoes on before Riz ever asked him to come over that leaves him wondering a great many things under all that Riz asks him. And Riz is gushing about his work, and Gorgug knows by now he isn’t stupid but in the deceptive hours of the night sometimes he cannot help but worry and Riz says something about brilliance that makes his chest well to bursting with pride laced with something elusive beyond it. 

Neither questions as Gorgug drapes an arm across the back of the couch in order to be closer to the schematics, settling Riz into the crook of his side as he talks more about Zaphriel, both under the impression the other is paying attention to exactly what they are not. Gorgug is warm against him, and the office isn’t empty, and a strange sense of peace finds him as the toll of caffeine wears him down. He feels hidden from every dark corner and unassuming mirror in the universe. And Riz fits perfectly against him as he tries to find words to impress someone so enraptured by his work, and his heart sings out something extraordinary as he realizes Riz hasn’t responded in the last few moments, as he realizes what it is to make Riz Gukgak feel safe enough to sleep. Silence, sweeping and gentle, devours them.

Gorgug for a moment considers waking Riz and taking him home before scanning the room scattered with rampant musings and deciding to accept a battle already won. He waits a moment more and moves to lie down, praying to Cassandra that the shitty couch beneath them does not give way now to their weight or a sound loud enough to wake the sleeping figure in his arms. The end position isn’t comfortable by any means, Gorgug’s proportions not befitting of the raggedy leather under him and Riz sleepily nestling into an indentation partially on his chest, partially disappearing somewhere into the couch itself, but Gorgug feels as though he could stay this way for a few hours, however long Riz sleeps, or forever.

Riz awakens on the backswing of a soothing memory, warmth and comfort before arranging his senses and parsing the confusion of familiar office walls and Gorgug next to him on the awful couch but horizontally this time and the remnants of sleep falling away to panic crashing within him at the light streaming in through the taut blinds.

This was a different losing track of time, slow and methodical staring up at Gorgug’s sleeping face awkward and beautiful in the morning glow. For once in his life, Riz goes back to sleep, not wanting to let this go and knowing he doesn’t have to. 

\---

“Hey dad,” 

The sun sets off in the backdrop of Elmville, and Riz’s voice feels foreign for only a moment until he pinpoints precisely where the chair is and lets go. 

He doesn’t know how long he talks, but it is natural and wet-faced and nearly dark by the time he is done catching up.

“..and, as far as love and stuff and that whole situation”

Gorgug is back a few feet, waiting patiently with his arms full of fresh flowers, smiling as Riz glances at him.

Riz smiles back.

“I still don’t really know exactly what I want, but that’s okay. I like what I have, and I-I think I’m figuring it out.”

Somewhere, he knows, he knows his dad is smiling too.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed this sweet little thistlegak romp! <3


End file.
